


we age at the cost of losing each other

by angelcult



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Growing Up Together, Implied/Referenced Incest, Introspection, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Unrequited Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 09:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21509074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelcult/pseuds/angelcult
Summary: Sam reflects on the years of he and Dean’s youth, he thinks on an unrequited love and how he will never approach it.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	we age at the cost of losing each other

Dean’s eyes never aged with him, Sam would say on any given day. 

_ They age too fast,  _ he’d explain,  _ his eyes are years older than he is.  _

He never said this to Dean, however, he’d never pour his heart out quite like that, he did that enough as it was, finding himself to the more openly emotional of the two of them.

But he tallied it, their ages, he unconsciously counted them and marked them with  _ moments.  _

  
  


When Dean was nineteen, Sam was fifteen and his brother had been a beacon, he had been what Sam was sure the Bible described as a holy, rapturing light. 

Dean had made his heart beat so fast it hurt his chest, so hard he was certain it wouldn’t stay in his rib cage. He unknowingly took from Sam, he took his heart and his breath and when he was eighteen, he ran from that, ran from  _ Dean,  _ and he thought he could have taken it all back but he was so wrong.

Sam was fourteen and Dean was eighteen, they were in his Dad’s Impala, sitting in the backseat because Sam had gotten a summer cold and he was shaky and pale, visibly ill. Dean had held him because he was cold and the blanket wasn’t enough, and he was so close he could count his brother’s freckles. 

Just close enough that he could see how chapped his lips were, how pink they were despite that and the green of his eyes was overwhelming. 

He remembered how he went so red all of a sudden that Dean almost made Dad pull the car over, convinced that he was getting worse and would be sick within seconds.

He’d been right, of course, he felt sick but for all the wrong reasons. 

Twenty and sixteen, Sam was pushing Dean away for reasons that he couldn’t tell him. How could he? How would he explain loving his brother in all the wrong ways, when Dean was source of every dream that made him shoot awake at night, when Dean was the one who made his skin tingle every time he touched him. 

He had to get away, Dean was all-encompassing. 

Sam pretended so hard that he was breaking at the edges too fast to catch, every smile at Dean made him hurt deeper, until he was sure he’d accidentally put his heart on his sleeve.

He would either kiss Dean or tell him, or he’d break and cave in on himself. 

When Sam was eighteen, it didn’t matter how old Dean was because he’d gotten into Stanford and he was on a bus to California. 

He could still remember the argument with his father, the scathing words thrown back and forth, the way Dean defended him even if he didn’t want it either. If Sam closed his eyes, he could see the teary eyed brother that drove him to the bus station.

  
  


_ “You know this life isn’t one you can get out of, Sammy.” Dean hadn’t turned the radio on as they rode. The silence was heated.  _

_ “I think I can, and this- this is the first step, De.” Sam had kept his eyes in front of him, because if he saw Dean’s eyes, he’d stay. He couldn’t afford to look at Dean. “You heard Dad, I’m not even cut out for the life.” _

_ Dean’s grip on the wheel tightened for a moment before he forced it to ease. “You know he doesn’t mean that, Sammy.” _

_ The accent he’d gained after spending two months in Louisiana chasing rogue vampires was starting to fade, Sam didn’t know it was possible to get an accent that fast. _

_ “I.. I think he does.” _

_ They pulled up to the station and Sam wondered if he’d break, if he would get out of the car only to start crying so hard Dean guided him back in.  _

_ “Look at me, Sam.” _

_ Their eyes met and Sam had never seen Dean’s eyes look so young and pained as he had in that moment.  _

  
  


Sam could pretend that when Dean found about Jess, that his eyes hadn’t dulled. It was all coincidence.

Just like how when Dean was seventeen, it was a coincidence that he dated a blond girl named Sam, and that she and Sam could both note their resemblance.

Dean never mentioned it and Sam beat down the spark of hope in his chest. 

There was a brief, hidden memory of their youth that Sam never really thought about. The moment is over the span of several days, and those days consist of Sam and Dean sharing the same bed like they always did but instead Dean’s arm resting over his waist and his hand spanned Sam’s stomach. 

He was sure that Dean had been asleep, but Dean could fake being asleep really well, Sam knew, he didn’t want to disturb the peaceful blanket that had settled over them.

Sam wished, oh he  _ wished,  _ he could have been able to bury his face into Dean’s chest and to have his pecks and kisses returned to him, but to Sam that all seemed so storybook, that when the sleeping position left and never turned, he was too scared to change it once again. 

They slept back to back for too long after that. 

  
  


When Sam was Lucifer and Dean was Dean, he could remember hearing Lucifer tease him about how his guard dropped fast when Dean was around. 

When Sam was Sam and Dean had a cursed coin of an unnamed soldier in his palm, he never thought he’d pull the trigger and if he  _ had,  _ he found how scary it was that he wouldn’t have minded dying by Dean’s hand all that much. 

Sam wondered if he and Dean’s story was ever meant to be linear. He didn’t think it was supposed to, because when they drove around in the Impala, Sam felt fifteen and Dean was nineteen and he was sick from demon’s blood instead of the summer heat but this time, Dean wouldn’t touch him. 

They didn’t sleep in the same bed, they didn’t  _ need to,  _ but if they did, Sam wanted it to be what it was like in that untitled winter month of an unknown year where neither of them had an age, and his back would be pressed to Dean’s chest, and his hand would span Sam’s stomach. This time, however, he’d turn so they could face each other, he would get to kiss Dean and Dean would kiss him back.

His lips would be chapped, his eyes would be young, Sam would be  _ old enough  _ and Dean would be  _ young enough  _ and he could only ask that he lived to see the day. 

For now, Dean was twenty-six and Sam was twenty-two, they were looking for the demon who took their mother and now, their father from them.

Sam wondered if he was still imagining Dean’s fervent glances at his mouth. 


End file.
